Juniper Hill

Juniper Hill

This is a two-storey residential building constructed of hand-made brown bricks to the ground floor and hardwood panelling at first-floor level, with a felted roof and hardwood window surrounds, doors and fascia panels.

The house is planned with interconnecting living rooms at the north-western end and bedrooms grouped at the south-eastern end of the ground floor. A playroom or studio occupies the first floor, accessed from a staircase off the kitchen. A single-storey service wing extends from the north corner, projecting north-east and containing a boiler room and lavatory, with a double garage attached.

The most distinctive feature is the prominent gabled roof with shallow pitch and deep eaves. The roof projects further at the centre of each long side, forming an irregular hexagonal outline, and sweeps low over the short flanks. The pitch is shallower on the south-eastern slope, setting the apex towards the north-western end where the entrance is located below it.

The north-east entrance front is lengthy and faces a matching garden front. The ground floor has brick walling, while the first floor and eaves are clad with vertical planks having chamfered edges. The entrance comprises a hardwood door and glazed panel beneath a flat-roofed porch supported by a metal pole resting on a tall rectangular brick planter projecting from the house. To the right is a long kitchen window; to the left are seven small rectangular lights serving bathrooms in the bedroom wing and a cloakroom. The first floor has a full-height four-light window above the entrance. The garage and service wing project at far right, the wing featuring horizontal slit windows and the garage having a shallow mono-pitch roof with buttresses of sloping outer face.

The garden front displays three bays to the left of centre, flanked by brick piers. These central bays are two storeys with deep windows above a low brick wall marking the reception rooms, and glazed doors to the left bay. The games room at first-floor level has full-height glazing and a projecting balcony with horizontal planks forming the balustrade. To the right are bedrooms with three identical ground-floor windows. The dining room is deeply recessed at left to form a covered verandah with crazy-paving laid in a chequerboard of alternating green and white marble squares. The relatively narrow flanks have brick buttresses with battered outer profile.

The entrance hall rises through both floors and leads to interconnecting lounge and dining room. An external door in the sitting room opens to the garden, and another in the dining room connects with the verandah. Wall surfaces combine bare brick, plain panelling and plaster. Bedrooms retain original fitted cupboards, and bathrooms mostly preserve original sanitary ware. The kitchen, positioned north of the entrance hall, has a crazy-paved floor of blue and white marble with original blue Formica cupboards and work surfaces. A breakfast alcove with fixed seating and telephone lobby adjoin. Stairs from the kitchen lead to the games room with plastered and boarded walls and sliding glazed doors opening to the balcony.